Closet Poets Have New Hero: Carter

January 20, 1995|By Mary Schmich.

I think that I shall never see

A poet who is quite like me.

My poems are a special treat

Cause I can make them rhyme real neat.

Tho sometimes

I

don't bother.

The above verse means slightly less than nothing, but it sprang to mind fully formed recently, inspired by the news that Jimmy Carter, our former president, has added a new occupation to his long and varied resume.

In addition to being an ex-president, an engineer, a farmer, a housebuilder and a free-lance peddler of peace pipes, Carter late in life has become a poet. This is terrific inspiration for the millions of closet poets in our land, though it also makes us wary.

Carter, in case you're not up on the poetry news, has just published 47 of his poems in a collection called "Always a Reckoning."

This is either evidence of his brilliance or the most knuckleheaded move since the venerable actor Jimmy Stewart exercised his right to print poetry that would make William Wordsworth wince.

What are we to make of this electronic age in which movie actors and former presidents are not only writing poetry but putting it on display at B. Dalton?

Is this proof of a literary renaissance? Or a sign of the apocalypse?

Some fine poets have had primary careers as something other than poets. Wallace Stevens was an insurance man. William Carlos Williams was a doctor.

But Carter should not be mocked for his efforts. Publishing your poetry is like tossing raw meat-your own body parts-to the critics. Publishing your poetry requires courage, though, in some cases, it's the idiotic courage of the unhelmeted motorcyclist hurtling toward a brick wall.

For the legions of closet poets, writing poetry is a private affair. Like dancing with yourself at home alone, it's OK to do and even therapeutic.

Writing poetry, like performing with the radio in front of the bathroom mirror, can shake the chains from a tortured soul.

But only someone graced with courage or cursed with hubris would let anyone else actually see these displays of self-expression.

What the ordinary scribbler calls poetry is apt to be little more than depressed thoughts without proper punctuation.

What the ordinary scribbler calls poetry, serious students of poetry would call words not fit to print.

I know this because back in the days when I mistook misery for the muse, I wrote reams of so-called poems.

One of them was even published. It was in the high school prom memory book, over which I had total editorial control, which is the only reason it was ever allowed to torment the eyes of readers.

This poem, I am sorry to say, went like this:

Spring is a golden world of

fantasy, of happiness;

A time to let pent up emotions run wild and free.

It ran its ragged way like that for a while, through a wasteland of cliches, climaxing in these timeless lines:

Spring is an infinite moment of captured happiness,

An everlasting poem of beauty that sings, `Love.'

Spring is tonight

And tonight is forever.

To this day, I do not know what it means. Back in those days, I thought that the very fact that it was incomprehensible, all mood and no meaning, was proof that it was, indeed, poetry.

This is the kind of poem that millions of closet poets have written, and it's what makes us-at least those of us who see ourselves for what we are-just a little suspicious of presidents and movie actors who become poets overnight.

Carter, to his credit, seems to understand that poetry is work. He diligently studied poetry before writing it. Also to his credit, he applies the bard's art to big social issues, and not only to the puny problems of the narcissistic heart.

And some of his poems are, well, fine. If they won't last through the ages, so what?